I think it's less that people are stupid, but more that they are ignorant. They're like that because they are allowed to be, since they can get through life without trying and still make it thanks to government dependence assistance programs

The person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it! 1,500 years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was the centre of the universe. 500 years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was flat. And 15 minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.

The person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it! 1,500 years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was the centre of the universe. 500 years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was flat. And 15 minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.

As for self-esteem, this is not a bad thing. For a while I've been riding on a virtually impenetrable wave of 'fucking bring it on' that I could deal with anything thrown at me, and when it came crashing down a few months ago, I spent time re-evaluating my life. I'm working on it. But I've never been my favourite person.

Technically, IQ is determined in respect to the median of a representative sample of general population. So yeah, it would work.

Oh come one. As if anyone would change the tests after the smartest 10% of the populace are gone. You'd still have an IQ of X regardless of how many people above that IQ are in the (remaining) populace.

Oh come one. As if anyone would change the tests after the smartest 10% of the populace are gone. You'd still have an IQ of X regardless of how many people above that IQ are in the (remaining) populace.

We need an XKCD What If about how many smart people I'd have to kill to raise my IQ by n points and the effect that it would have on the world for different values of n. I'm already over three quarters of the way to the perfect 100.